Is he really that highly rated though? He wrote a string of classic songs of course, but never reached the level of some of his contemporaries like Dylan or Leonard Cohen, and he seems to know it. Apart from that he seems like kind of a douchebag and hasn't done anything worthwhile since some time in the '70s.

I usually come in second to (to Dylan), and I don't like coming in second. ...One of my deficiencies is my voice sounds sincere. I've tried to sound ironic. I don't. I can't. Dylan, everything he sings has two meanings. He's telling you the truth and making fun of you at the same time. I sound sincere every time.

He wrote a string of classic songs of course, but never reached the level of some of his contemporaries like Dylan or Leonard Cohen, and he seems to know it. Apart from that he seems like kind of a douchebag and hasn't done anything worthwhile since some time in the '70s.

Simon is way more popular than Cohen, and suggesting that SImon hasn't done anything worthwhile since the '70s is LOLy. In fact, he did his best work after the '70s! Unless, of course, you really, truly don't like "Graceland" or "Rhythm of the Saints" or the new one, in which case, I'm sorry. But I'd put Paul Simon's best work (with G and solo) up against many of his era. Certainly he's no less a cultural signifier.

i have to say im p shocked that you started a paul simon poll but even moreso that deej likes paul simon!!!

paul simon vs cohen is interesting to me, i would never think to group them together really but simon is probably a better and more versatile songwriter but cohens a 'better' lyricist and performer. 'graceland' and 'songs of love and hate' are p much both all time for me tho

stupid challop but i guess this is the thread for it: much of simon's best work was done before he started recording under his own name

the funny thing though is that I think I was kind of defending Simon? in that I think he's not really THAT highly rated, and even seems to have some kind of inferiority complex about his legacy. Despite the fact that he's an obvious classic who wrote some monster songs that have become all-time standards.

its funny that you should mention writing words to music and graceland in the same breath because its my understanding that it was his first album using that method, before that it was always music to words, and das why graceland feels so free

If "consensus" matters, then the consensus about Simon's eponymous debut, Still Crazy..., and Graceland still holds. Matos said in a recent column that So Beautiful or So What was so far his favorite album of the year.

generally speaking when someone drags "it's pathetic!!" or some variation thereof into their criticism it's because they are---or have the critical faculties of---a fourteen year old venting on facebook

I will say, having seen both Cohen and Simon live in recent years, that Cohen may be the only great living singer/songwriter who may be less of a singer than Simon. Not that it matters, in either case. I'll happily accept Cohen's monotone rumble and Simon's limited but nimble sing-song.

maybe I'm way off base but I do feel like there's this certain quality about Simon where he knows he never really reached the level he wanted to attain

I remember reading in that David Browne book "Fire & Rain" that Simon didn't feel like he got his due as a songwriter and was always chasing the kind of respect that Dylan got. Also it pissed him off that people gave Garfunkel most of credit for BOTW even though Simon wrote it. And when he wanted to go solo Clive Davis basically told him that he wasn't well known enough to be a success on his own.

the logic i was working on in my mix is that they are generally more atmospheric and groove based right up until obvious child where there is the big breakdown that lets you have the more angular and mother and child reunion followed by the comedown of spirit voices and finally fade out on train in the distance, looking out onto the horizon, remembering old times.

are we still doing the artist specific album polls on ilm? i had signed up to run a paul simon one and as a result made a really extensive youtube playlist of all his best songs so i could put together a perfect ballot

anyway i think my perfect paul simon mix would lean more heavily towards the kinda wistful and yearning and sweet songs i like those songs where hes explaining s.thing to you abt how it is to be alive but its not garish or forced or w/e and theres always a part that you can sing-along to w/o really like SINGING stuff like 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' or 'lisa' or 'duncan' even

i think for me his best upbeat and rhythmic stuff is like 'all around the worlds' where hes still just telling you this story and it sometimes means something and sometimes doesnt and you can just vibe out to the sound of it, like the shape of the thing, but there are still these jarring and thoughtful bits that aim to haunt you like 'abandoned now just like the war'

are we still doing the artist specific album polls on ilm? i had signed up to run a paul simon one and as a result made a really extensive youtube playlist of all his best songs so i could put together a perfect ballot

― the parable is the parable of the (Lamp), Tuesday, January 31, 2012 2:44 PM (14 minutes ago)

I was outta college when Graceland came out, but my slightly younger sister was a manic Simon fan from the age of EIGHT so I heard all the LPs as they were released in the '70s and '80s. We went to the Graceland tour at Radio City.

<3 you for this, the funny thing of course is that that only happened through total incompetence and getting-behind-on-shit on my part. It also overlapped with me moving to India for a while, I remember using about 15 minutes a day of my pre-work internet time throwing together a result to post...good times.

it is! and because some songs fit so well in the context of their own albums but rub up against each other weirdly on a mix. i had to take "the boxer" off a paul simon mix for my sister for this reason. also she really vibed on specific songs like "slip slidin' away" and "the obvious child" but she says she finds it hard to listen to the mix in its entirety. it's like too much unvariegated goodness.

i like those songs where hes explaining s.thing to you abt how it is to be alive but its not garish or forced or w/e and theres always a part that you can sing-along to w/o really like SINGING stuff like 'diamonds on the soles of her shoes' or 'lisa' or 'duncan' even

this is so otm; so satisfying speak-singing along to all the repeated lines in "duncan"

My friend was one of those ppl whose parents never played it growing up, i made him listen to it for the first time a couple years ago. The other night we put it on when we were drunk and he said 'you know what, i've kinda decided this is my fav album of all-time now'. <3

yeah the greatest thing about his 1st album and much of his later catalogue is precisely the mix of precisely arranged and tightly written songs and the room to breathe (melodically and in terms of pacing and arrangement) he gives them... he's someone who is obviously concerned with written "good" songs (in a way that's become a cliché of adult-album-alternative) but who has also absorbed the lessons of much of the blues, folk, gospel, and world music he loves. peace like a river is a good example.

"I look outside my window and I watch the Cars" - Paul is in London where Roy Thomas Baker is producing their debut, he sees them arriving at the studio daily for tracking"I fear I'll do some damage one fine day" - he is thinking of covering one of their songs in his own style"but I would not be found guilty by a jury of my peers" - old hippies will love my Cars cover no matter what it sounds like"still crazy after all these years" - I am an axe murderer

Singer Paul Simon and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman dining together at the Bombay Club Monday night with two others. Shrimp, kebab, veggies among their shared dishes. What’s the occasion? Nothing special, the columnist’s office told us, “just a dinner with friends.”

Transformations, extrapolations and a few collisions were on the program when Paul Simon performed with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra on Thursday night at the Rose Theater, part of a three-night fund-raising series. (With tickets costing hundreds of dollars, perhaps it was no coincidence that the first words Mr. Simon sang were “She’s a rich girl,” from “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes.”)

Mr. Simon and Wynton Marsalis performed and brought their bands together for a concert of Simon songs at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Mr. Simon, not usually one to cede control of his music, brought his own band to perform side by side with the Lincoln Center big band led by Wynton Marsalis. Mr. Marsalis noted that Mr. Simon was playing (and paying his band for) “three concerts for absolutely no money.”

It was all about arrangements, old and new: easing in and out of Mr. Simon’s usual band versions or completely revamping the songs. In the course of the night, the Lincoln Center band became a tag team, a beefed-up horn section, a new perspective and, now and then, a fifth wheel. As Mr. Simon sang, he breezed through the alterations to songs he has been singing for decades, toying with the timing of familiar lines to keep them conversational and immediate.

The program didn’t focus on the Simon songs closest to jazz; it didn’t include, for instance, the chromatic labyrinth of “Still Crazy After All These Years.” Instead it favored his folky and rock-tinged repertory, his three-chord marvels. Nearly all of the new arrangements were by the orchestra members, and they had a hard act to follow: Mr. Simon’s meticulous originals, with their ingenious cultural hybrids and ever nimble rhythms. His music is tightly wound, and within it are hints and implications that the big-band arrangements could pick up, and did.